Oracle Gets into the BYOD Game

Without much fanfare Oracle recently quietly acquired Bitzer Mobile, a provider of mobile applications management solutions that allow organizations to provide their employees access to corporate data and applications from their mobile devices. Oracle hereby intends to address the growing security needs created by the burgeoning “bring your own device” (BYOD) trend.

Bitzer Mobile will augment Oracle's portfolio of Fusion Middleware products, and is expected to be a core component of the giant’s mobile security strategy. Together, Oracle and Bitzer Mobile are expected to provide organizations with a solution to manage the security of enterprise information held on personal and company-owned mobile devices.

Bitzer Mobile’s software tools enable secure access to corporate applications and data on mobile devices by creating "lockers" within the devices, which are shut off from other applications and data. The transaction has already been closed, but Oracle is at this stage able to reveal only that it is “currently reviewing the existing Bitzer Mobile product roadmap and will be providing guidance to customers in accordance with Oracle's standard product communication policies.”

The acquisition is not a big surprise given that Oracle's major foe, SAP, has long provided mobile platform capabilities via the Sybase Unwired Platform (SUP) and Afaria offerings. For their part, VMware offers similar capabilities through its Horizon Mobile SecureWorkspace, while Samsung is looking to add secure apps and data silos within its devices through its KNOX platform. Oracle's acquisition also comes shortly after IBM acquired Fiberlink Communications, a provider of MaaS360 mobile device management (MDM), app management, and security software. It will be interesting to watch whether salesforce.com will follow suit, given that mobility and connectivity to all devices has been the main theme of the Dreamforce 2013 conference.